Part 39

Since the outbreak near Manjeri in 1849, when two companies of sepoys were routed after firing a few shots, European troops have always been engaged against the Mappillas. On the occasion of that outbreak, one of the Mappillas had his thigh broken in the engagement. He remained in all the agony of a wound unattended to for seven days, and was further tortured by being carried in a rough litter from the Manjeri to the Angadipuram temple. Yet, at the time of a further fight, he was hopping to the encounter on his sound leg, and only anxious to get a fair blow at the infidels before he died. It is recorded that, on one occasion, when a detachment of sepoys was thrown into disorder by a fierce rush of death-devoted Mappillas, the drummer of the company distinguished himself by bonneting an assailant with his drum, thereby putting the Mappilla's head into a kind of straight jacket, and saving his own life. [207] In 1852 Mr. Strange was appointed Special Commissioner to enquire into the causes of, and suggest remedies for, the Mappilla disturbances. In his report he stated, inter alia, that "a feature that has been manifestly common to the whole of these affairs is that they have been, one and all, marked by the most decided fanaticism, and this, there can be no doubt, has furnished the true incentive to them. The Mappillas of the interior were always lawless, even in the time of Tippu, were steeped in ignorance, and were, on these accounts, more than ordinarily susceptible to the teaching of ambitious and fanatical priests using the recognised precepts of the Koran as handles for the sanction to rise and slay Kafirs, who opposed the faithful, chiefly in the pursuit of agriculture. The Hindus, in the parts where outbreaks have been most frequent, stand in such fear of the Mappillas as mostly not to dare to press for their rights against them, and there is many a Mappilla tenant who does not pay his rent, and cannot, so imminent are the risks, be evicted." Mr. Strange stated further that "the most perverted ideas on the doctrine of martyrdom, according to the Koran, universally prevail, and are fostered among the lower classes of the Mappillas. The late enquiries have shown that there is a notion prevalent among the lower orders that, according to the Mussalman religion, the fact of a janmi or landlord having in due course of law ejected from his lands a mortgagee or other substantial tenant, is a sufficient pretext to murder him, become sahid (saint), and so ensure the pleasures of the Muhammadan paradise. It is well known that the favourite text of the banished Arab priest or Tangal, in his Friday orations at the mosque in Tirurangadi, was 'It is no sin, but a merit, to kill a janmi who evicts.'" Mr. Strange proposed the organisation of a special police force exclusively composed of Hindus, and that restrictions should be put on the erection of mosques. Neither of these proposals was approved by Government. But a policy of repression set in with the passing of Acts XXII and XXIV of 1854. The former authorised the local authorities to escheat the property of those guilty of fanatical rising, to fine the locality where outrages had occurred, and to deport suspicious persons out of the country. The latter rendered illegal the possession of the Mappilla war-knife. Mr. Conolly, the District Magistrate, proceeded, in December, 1854, on a tour, to collect the war-knives through the heart of the Mappilla country. In the following year, when he was sitting in his verandah, a body of fanatics, who had recently escaped from the Calicut jail, rushed in, and hacked him to pieces in his wife's presence. He had quite recently received a letter from Lord Dalhousie, congratulating him on his appointment as a member of the Governor's Council at Madras. His widow was granted the net proceeds of the Mappilla fines, amounting to more than thirty thousand rupees.

In an account of an outbreak in 1851, it is noted that one of the fanatics was a mere child. And it was noticed, in connection with a more recent outbreak, that there were "several boys who were barely fourteen years old. One was twelve; some were seventeen or eighteen. Some observers have said that the reason why boys turn fanatics is because they may thus avoid the discomfort, which the Ramzan entails. A dispensation from fasting is claimable when on the war-path. There are high hopes of feasts of cocoanuts and jaggery, beef and boiled rice. At the end of it all there is Paradise with its black-eyed girls." [208]

In 1859, Act No. XX for the suppression of outrages in the district of Malabar was passed.

In 1884, Government appointed Mr. Logan, the Head Magistrate of Malabar, to enquire into the general question of the tenure of land and tenant right, and the question of sites for mosques and burial-grounds in the district. Mr. Logan expressed his opinion that the Mappilla outrages were designed "to counteract the overwhelming influence, when backed by the British courts, of the janmis in the exercise of the novel powers of ouster, and of rent-raising conferred upon them. A janmi who, through the courts, evicted, whether fraudulently or otherwise, a substantial tenant, was deemed to have merited death, and it was considered a religious virtue, not a fault, to have killed such a man, and to have afterwards died in arms, fighting against an infidel Government." Mr. MacGregor, formerly Collector of Malabar, had, some years before, expressed himself as "perfectly satisfied that the Mappilla outrages are agrarian. Fanaticism is merely the instrument, through which the terrorism of the landed classes is aimed at."

In 1884 an outbreak occurred near Malappuram, and it was decided by Government to disarm the taluks of Ernad, Calicut, and Walluvanad. Notwithstanding the excited state of the Mappillas at the time, the delicate operation was successfully carried out by the district officers, and 17,295 arms, including 7,503 fire-arms of various kinds, were collected. In the following year, the disarming of the Ponnani taluk was accomplished. Of these confiscated arms, the Madras Museum possesses a small collection, selected from a mass of them which were hoarded in the Collector's office, and were about to be buried in the deep sea.

In 1896 a serious outbreak occurred at Manjeri, and two or three notoriously objectionable landlords were done away with. The fanatics then took up a position, and awaited the arrival of the British troops. They took no cover, and, when advancing to attack, were mostly shot down at a distance of 700 to 800 yards, every man wounded having his throat cut by his nearest friend. In the outbreak of 1894, a Mappilla youth was wounded, but not killed. The tidings was conveyed to his mother, who merely said, with the stern majesty of the Spartan matron of old, 'If I were a man, I would not come back wounded.' [209] "Those who die fighting for the faith are reverenced as martyrs and saints, who can work miracles from the Paradise to which they have attained. A Mappilla woman was once benighted in a strange place. An infidel passed by, and, noticing her sorry plight, tried to take advantage of it to destroy her virtue. She immediately invoked the aid of one of the martyrs of Malappuram. A deadly serpent rushed out of a neighbouring thicket, and flew at the villain, who had dared to sully the chastity of a chosen daughter. Once, during a rising, a Mappilla, who preferred to remain on the side of order and Government, stood afar off, and watched with sorrow the dreadful sight of his co-religionists being cut down by the European soldiery. Suddenly his emotions underwent a transformation, for there, through his blinding tears and the dust and smoke of the battle, he saw a wondrous vision. Lovely houris bent tenderly over fallen martyrs, bathed their wounds, and gave them to drink delicious sherbet and milk, and, with smiles that outshone the brightness of the sun, bore away the fallen bodies of the brave men to the realms beyond. The watcher dashed through the crowd, and cast in his lot with the happy men who were fighting such a noble fight. And, after he was slain, these things were revealed to his wife in a vision, and she was proud thereat. These, and similar stories, are believed as implicitly as the Koran is believed." [210]

It is noted by Mr. Logan [211] that the custom of the Nayars, in accordance with which they sacrificed their lives for the honour of the king, "was readily adopted by the Mappillas, who also at times--as at the great Mahamakham twelfth year feast at Tirunavayi--devoted themselves to death in the company of Nayars for the honour of the Valluvanad Raja. And probably the frantic fanatical rush of the Mappillas on British bayonets is the latest development of this ancient custom of the Nayars."

The fanatical outbreaks of recent times have been exclusively limited to the Ernad and Walluvanad taluks. There are quartered at the present time at Malappuram in the Ernad taluk a special Assistant Collector, a company of British troops, and a special native police force. In 1905, Government threw open 220 scholarships, on the results of the second and third standard examinations, to Mappilla pupils of promise in the two taluks mentioned above, to enable them to prosecute their studies for the next higher standard in a recognised school connected with the Madras Educational Department. Twenty scholarships were further offered to Mappillas in the special class attached to the Government School of Commerce, Calicut, where instruction in commercial arithmetic, book-keeping, commercial practice, etc., is imparted in the Malayalam language. In 1904, a Mappilla Sanskrit school was founded at Puttur, some of the pupils at which belong to the families of hereditary physicians, who were formerly good Sanskrit scholars.

At a Loyalty meeting of Mappillas held at Ponnani in 1908 under the auspices of the Mannath-ul-Islam Sabha, the President spoke as follows. "When the Moplahs are ranged on the side of order, the peace of the country is assured. But the Moplah is viewed with suspicion by the Government. He has got a bad name as a disturber of the peace. He is liable to fits, and no one knows when he may run amock. From this public platform I can assure the Government as well as the public that the proper remedy has at last been applied, and the Moplah fits have ceased, never to return. What the remedy was, and who discovered it, must be briefly explained. Every Moplah outbreak was connected with the relapse of a convert. In the heat of a family quarrel, in a moment of despair, a Hindu thought to revenge himself upon his family by becoming a convert to Islam. In a few days, repentance followed, and he went back to his relatives. An ignorant Mullah made this a text for a sermon. A still more ignorant villager found in it an opportunity to obtain admission into the highest Paradise. An outbreak results. The apostate's throat is cut. The Moplah is shot. Deportation and Punitive Police follow. The only rational way to put a final stop to this chronic malady was discovered by a Hindu gentleman. The hasty conversions must be stopped. Those who seek conversion must be given plenty of time to consider the irrevocable nature of the step they were going to take. The Mullahs must be properly instructed. Their interpretation of the Koran was wrong. There is absolutely nothing in our scriptures to justify murders of this kind, or opposition to the ruling power. The ignorant people had to be taught. There was no place in Paradise for murderers and cut-throats. Their place was lower down. Three things had to be done. Conversion had to be regulated; the Mullahs had to be instructed; the ignorance of the people had to be removed. Ponani is the religious head-quarters of the Moplahs of the West Coast, including Malabar, South Canara, and the Native States of Cochin and Travancore. The Jarathingal Thangal at Ponani is the High Priest of all the Moplahs; the Mahadoom Thangal of Ponani is the highest authority in all religious matters. It is he that sanctifies the Musaliars. The Mannath-ul-Islam Sabha at Ponani was started under the auspices of the Jarathingal Thangal and the Mahadoom Thangal. Two schools were opened for the education of new converts, one for boys and the other for girls. Strict enquiries were made as to the state of mind and antecedents of all who seek conversion. They are kept under observation long enough, and are admitted only on the distinct understanding that it is a deliberate voluntary act, and they have to make up their minds to remain. Some six thousand converts have passed through our schools since the Sabha was started. The Musaliars are never sanctified until they are thoroughly grounded in the correct principles of our religion, and an assurance is obtained from them that they will never preach rebellion. No Musaliar will break a promise given to the Thangal. The loyalty of the Musaliars and Mullahs is thus assured. Where there is no Musaliar to bless them, there is no Moplah to die as a martyr. The Mullahs are also taught to explain to all villagers that our scriptures condemn opposition to the ruling power, and that loyalty to the Sovereign is a religious duty. We are also trying to spread education among the ignorant villagers. In order further to enlist the sympathies of the people, extensive charities have been organised. Sixteen branches of the Sabha have been opened all over South Malabar and the States of Travancore and Cochin. A very large number of domestic quarrels--divorce cases,

## partition cases, etc.--have been settled by arbitration through these

branch associations. It is an immense power for good."

The Mappillas have been summed up, as regards their occupations, as being traders on the coast, and cultivators in the interior, in both of which callings they are very successful and prosperous. "In the realm of industry," it has been said, "the Moplah occupies a position, which undoubtedly does him credit. Poverty is confined almost exclusively to certain wild, yet picturesque tracts in the east of Malabar, where the race constitutes the preponderating element of the population, and the field and farm furnish the only means of support to the people. And it is just in those areas that one may see at their best the grit, laboriousness, and enterprise of the Moplah. He reclaims dense forest patches, and turns them into cultivated plots under the most unfavourable conditions, and, in the course of a few years, by hard toil and perseverance, he transforms into profitable homesteads regions that were erstwhile virgin forest or scrubby jungle. Or he lays himself out to reclaim and plant up marshy lands lying alongside rivers and lagoons, and insures them from destruction by throwing up rough but serviceable dykes and dams. In these tracts he is also sometimes a timber merchant, and gets on famously by taking out permits to fell large trees, which he rafts down the rivers to the coast. The great bulk of the Moplahs in these wild regions belong purely to the labouring classes, and it is among these classes that the pinch of poverty is most keenly felt, particularly in the dull monsoon days, when all industry has to be suspended. In the towns and coast ports, the Moplahs are largely represented in most branches of industry and toil. A good many of them are merchants, and get on exceedingly well, being bolder and more speculative than the Hindus of the district. The bulk of petty traders and shop-keepers in Malabar are also Moplahs, and, in these callings, they may be found at great distances from home, in Rangoon, Ceylon, the Straits and elsewhere, and generally prospering. Almost everywhere in their own district they go near monopolising the grocery, hardware, haberdashery, and such other trades; and as petty bazar men they drive a profitable business on the good old principle of small profits and quick returns. No native hawker caters more readily to Mr. Thomas Atkins (the British soldier) than the Moplah, and, in the military stations in Malabar, 'Poker' (a Moplah name) waxes fat and grows rich by undertaking to supply Tommy with tea, coffee, lemonade, tobacco, oilman stores, and other little luxuries."

"Some Mappillas," Mr. A. Chatterton writes, [212] "have taken to leather-working, and they are considered to be specialists in the making of ceruppus or leather shoes. In Malabar the trade in raw hides and skins is chiefly in the hands of Mappillas. Weekly fairs are held at several places, and all the available hides and skins are put up for sale, and are purchased by Muhammadans." Some Mappillas bind books, and others are good smiths. "The small skull caps, which are the universal head-gear of Mappilla men and boys, are made in different parts of Malabar, but the best are the work of Mappilla women at Cannanore. They are made of fine canvas beautifully embroidered by hand, and fetch in the market between Rs. 2 and Rs. 3." [213]

The Mappillas take an active share in the fish-curing operations along the west coast, and the Mukkuvans, who are the hereditary fishermen of Malabar, are inclined to be jealous of them. A veteran Mukkuvan, at the time of my inspection of the Badagara fish-curing yard in 1900, put the real grievance of his brethren in a nutshell. In old days, he stated, they used salt-earth for curing fishes. When the fish-curing yards were started, and Government salt was issued, the Mukkuvans thought that they were going to be heavily taxed. They did not understand exactly what was going to happen, and were suspicious. The result was that they would have nothing to do with the curing-yards. The use of salt-earth was stopped on the establishment of Government salt, and some of the fishermen were convicted for illegal use thereof. They thought that, if they held out, they would be allowed to use salt-earth as formerly. Meanwhile, the Mappillas, being more wide-awake than the Mukkuvans, took advantage of the opportunity (in 1884), and erected yards, whereof they are still in possession. A deputation of Mukkuvans waited on me. Their main grievance was that they are hereditary fishermen, and formerly the Mappillas were only the purchasers of fish. A few years ago, the Mappillas started as fishermen on their own account, with small boats and thattuvala (tapping nets), in using which the nets, with strips of cocoanut leaves tied on to the ropes, are spread, and the sides of the boats beaten with sticks and staves, to drive the fish into the net. The noise made extends to a great distance, and consequently the shoals go out to sea, too far for the fishermen to follow in pursuit. In a petition, which was submitted to me by the Mukkuvan fish-curers at Badagara, they asked to have the site of the yard changed, as they feared that their women would be 'unchastised' at the hands of the Mappillas.

"Small isolated attempts," Major Holland-Pryor writes, "to recruit Mappillas were made by various regiments quartered in Malabar some years ago, but without success. This was probably owing to the fact that the trial was made on too small a scale, and that the system of mixed companies interfered with their clannish propensities. The district officers also predicted certain failure, on the ground that Mappillas would not serve away from their own country. Their predictions, however, have proved to be false, and men now come forward in fair numbers for enlistment." In 1896, the experiment of recruiting Mappillas for the 25th Madras Infantry was started, and the responsible task of working up the raw material was entrusted to Colonel Burton, with whose permission I took measurements of his youthful warriors. As was inevitable in a community recruited by converts from various classes, the sepoys afforded an interesting study in varied colouration, stature and nasal configuration. One very dark-skinned and platyrhine individual, indeed, had a nasal index of 92. Later on, the sanction of the Secretary of State was obtained for the adoption of a scheme for converting the 17th and 25th regiments of the Madras Infantry into Mappilla corps, which were subsequently named the 77th and 78th Moplah Rifles. "These regiments," Major Holland-Pryor continues, "at present draw their men principally from Ernad and Valuvanad. Labourers from these parts are much sought after by planters and agents from the Kolar gold-fields, on account of their hardiness and fine physique. Some, however, prefer to enlist. The men are generally smaller than the Coast Mappillas, and do not show much trace of Arab blood, but they are hardy and courageous, and, with their superior stamina, make excellent fighting material." In 1905 the 78th Moplah Rifles were transferred to Dera Ismail Khan in the Punjab, and took part in the military manoeuvres before H.R.H. the Prince of Wales at Rawalpindi. It has been observed that "the Moplahs, in dark green and scarlet, the only regiment in India which wears the tarbush, are notable examples of the policy of taming the pugnacious races by making soldiers of them, which began with the enlistment of the Highlanders in the Black Watch, and continued to the disciplining of the Kachins in Burma. In the general overhauling of the Indian Army, the fighting value of the Moplahs has come into question, and the 78th Regiment is now at Dera Ismail Khan being measured against the crack regiments of the north." In 1907, the colours of the 17th Madras Infantry, which was formed at Fort St. George in 1777, and had had its name changed to 77th Moplah Rifles, were, on the regiment being mustered out, deposited in St. Mark's Church, Bangalore.

It has been said of the Mappillas [214] that "their heads are true cocoanuts; their high foreheads and pointed crowns are specially noticeable for being kept shaven, and, when covered, provided with only a small gaily embroidered skull-cap."